


Nightmares (Don't Worry)

by Krasimer



Series: And Now a Flower Grows 'Verse [12]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Asriel Dreemurr Lives, Dreams and Nightmares, Established Sans/Toriel (Undertale), F/M, Frisk (Undertale) Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Gen, Hot Chocolate, Minor Sans/Toriel (Undertale), No More Resets (Undertale), Parent Sans (Undertale), Parent Toriel (Undertale), Parenthood, SAVED Asriel Dreemurr, Sad Frisk (Undertale), Selectively Mute Frisk (Undertale), Undertale Saves and Resets, Worried Sans (Undertale)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-08-19 19:30:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16540754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krasimer/pseuds/Krasimer
Summary: Sure enough, Frisk stood there in the dark, one hand held up to talk to him, though they were shaking too much to do that. The other was wrapped, supportive and gentle, around and under Asriel’s arms. Both of the kids were looking a little panicked, eyes wide as the next clap of thunder came a little closer. From the sound of it, the storm would soon be on top of them. “Hey, kiddos,” Sans sat up a little. “Did you want to climb on into the bed with us?”Asriel shook his head first, his furry little paws clutching tightly at Frisk’s shoulder. His voice, when he spoke, was still a little too quiet and brittle to be what he had once been, but he was understandable. “Nightmares,” he whispered. “We both had ‘em.





	Nightmares (Don't Worry)

 When the distant rattle and boom of thunder and lightning shook the bedroom, Sans already knew what he would see when he opened his eyes.

Sure enough, Frisk stood there in the dark, one hand held up to talk to him, though they were shaking too much to do that. The other was wrapped, supportive and gentle, around and under Asriel’s arms. Both of the kids were looking a little panicked, eyes wide as the next clap of thunder came a little closer. From the sound of it, the storm would soon be on top of them. “Hey, kiddos,” Sans sat up a little. “Did you want to climb on into the bed with us?”

Asriel shook his head first, his furry little paws clutching tightly at Frisk’s shoulder. His voice, when he spoke, was still a little too quiet and brittle to be what he had once been, but he was understandable. “Nightmares,” he whispered. “We both had ‘em.”

Sans sat up completely, checking on Toriel before nodding and getting out of bed. “C’mon then, you two.” He ruffled fur and hair as he passed, holding out a glowing-blue hand to steady Asriel’s still shaky steps. “Let’s go to the kitchen. I know it’s late and Tori might not approve, but nightmares are always helped by a little bit of chocolate.” He winked at them both, grinning, then took a hand from them each. Falling into the role of a father had been almost worryingly easy: one of them had been a nightmare of his own for a long time and the other had been on a similar path.

But they were still just kids.

They needed people who loved them and cared about them. Frisk, at all of eleven years old, was the ambassador between humans and monsters. Asriel, brought back from a nearly-dead state and returned to his goat body. They were a couple of unique cases and they needed people who cared about them.

He could do that. He could be their father – one of them, anyway –and he could make sure that their nightmares wouldn’t touch them. The storm probably hadn’t helped either, but it had probably been their own memories that had dragged them both out of bed. From what they had done and from what Chara had done, there was enough trauma to last several lifetimes.

In the darkness of the hallway, Asriel sniffled miserable, probably still afraid of the dark after all these years.

“Hey,” Sans squeezed his hand for a moment, feeling his very Soul shudder at the sadness and fear he could feel coming off the little goat in waves. “It’s okay. Oh,” he grinned, summoning a smaller version of one of his Blasters. “Check this out.”

Instead of the ones he usually summoned, he’d made sure this one looked more like the ones Papyrus summoned on occasion. Big eyes, like a puppy’s, and a lolling tongue hanging out of it’s mouth. The eyes and nose of it’s skull were glowing a gentle blue, like a nightlight. When he saw it, Asriel giggled reaching a slow hand out to pat at the snout made of bone. Frisk, for a second there, tensed up before they giggled as well.

“C’mon chucklers, we’ve got some hot chocolate to make.” Sans led them into the kitchen and settled everything, mugs and marshmallows and all, into place on the table. The best hot chocolate was the recipe he remembered his dad making when he was a baby bones: melted chocolate, thick cream, a little dash of whatever flavoring was on hand, poured into a mug slowly to let it cool a bit before handing it off to the child.

He ended up making three mugs.

When he finally sat down with them, Frisk and Asriel were leaning into each other’s sides, clutching the heated porcelain tightly in their little hands. “So,” he took a careful sip of his own, nodding when it didn’t burn his mouth. “D’you wanna talk about it?”

Frisk, shaking and shivering, leaned further into Asriel’s side. Even when their voice didn’t work, they weren’t usually so quiet. He’d never actually _seen_ them be this quiet before, their hands clenched so tightly on their mug that their knuckles were white. Their head shook minutely back and forth, almost imperceptibly so. At their side, Asriel wrapped his arm around their shoulders and, for just a second, Sans thought he could see the markings that had been on his cheeks once.

“I woke up first,” Asriel whispered. “Frisk was curled up in a ball on their bed, I couldn’t—” he made a noise in the back of his throat. “I couldn’t get them to wake up until I grabbed their hands and uncurled them from the pillow.”

Sans crossed his arms on the surface of the table and leaned forward. Close enough for comfort, far enough away to be unobtrusive if the kids didn’t want him closer. A trick he’d learned for dealing with small monsters whose parents hadn’t been around. Fallen Down or just gone away or something else entirely, he’d approached them and tried to keep them safe. “Yeah?”

“When they woke up, th-they were shaking so hard I thought they were going to fall apart,” Asriel continued, a terrified look in his eyes. “And then the storm started and I just…I had them hold onto me for a bit. When the noises started getting closer, we came to get you.”

“Not Tori?”

“Mom’s good at everything,” Asriel said it with pride in his voice, the love a small child had for a parent they truly thought was the best. “But she’d press a little too much and ask too many questions about the nightmare and…And…Well…”

He had seemed like the less intense option.

The better option.

Toriel, when she got truly worried and concerned, would push for answers until she got a response in a way she deemed good enough. She was learning to tone it down, but she still sometimes slipped a bit. She was a great mother, one of the best he’d ever known, but she was sometimes a little overprotective. With an almost knife-edge of clarity, Sans understood why they had come to him with their nightmares: He wouldn’t judge them for it, wouldn’t ask too many questions, wouldn’t ask them to dredge up the darkest parts of their minds when they’d already been forced to relive their nightmares once.

He had lived through the RESETS. He had seen nightmares and darkness every time he closed his eyes. He had been in that position before.

“Hey, you two,” he stood up, grabbing his mug of chocolate as he did. “Let’s take this pajama party to the couch. You spuds look like you’d be good _couch potatoes.”_ He grinned as Asriel groaned. The little goat pretended to hate puns, but Sans could tell he really loved them.

Frisk and Asriel stood up carefully, abandoning their chocolates for a minute.

Once Asriel was settled in, Frisk went back for them, setting them on the coffee table. They curled their little body up and sat next to Asriel, their head on his shoulder. After grabbing some of the thicker blankets out of the closet, Sans joined them, tucking himself into the arm of the couch and tossing a couple layers of blanket over all three of them. “G’night you little gremlins,” he muttered, scruffling hair and fur alike.

In just a couple of minutes, both of them had fallen back asleep again. Frisk shifted in their sleep, coming to a rest against Sans’ stomach, dragging Asriel down with them.

Sans, after a couple of minutes of watching them, fell asleep as well.

**Author's Note:**

> More NaNoWriMo fanfic writing. It's just what I am doing this month, in between classes and what little sleep I get.
> 
> Hey Undertale fandom, how're you doing? Long time no posting. I had a chapter in progress wherein Mettaton and Papyrus work their shit out but my external hard drive died and it's stuck on there.
> 
> Hey Sans, you enjoying being a parent to two kids who, at one point, had god-like powers?


End file.
